Chapter 09: Philosophy: Reflections on the Essence of Education

Practice Quiz

Case Study: Teacher Resigns over Plagiarism Fight (Virginia)

• Piper High school biology teacher Christine Pelton learned that 28 of her students had plagiarized on their semester projects.
  • Hadn't thought it would be a problem because she had the district's support in a previous incident of accusing her students of cheating.
  • The principle and superintendent both agreed with the teacher, she should give them a zero for their project
• After parent complaints, the Piper school board demanded that she go easier on the students, giving them partial credit and making the project worth less.
  • The 26 year-old teacher resigned
• This incident is just a reflection of the national decline in integrity
  • Many examples of professors, award-winning historians, coaches, and other people of power either falsifying information or not giving proper credit
    • How are students supposed to value integrity if people of power don't?
• According to Pelton, students know that if they don't get their way, they can complain to the school board
• This is an example of why (according to Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe) so many teachers and professors are ignoring cheating

Intro (Kristin)

• Philosophy is passion to uncover and reflect on the meaning of things
• Means "love of wisdom"
• early philosophers were viewed as reflective thinkers in search of wisdom
• this chapter explores ways of looking at the world, big ideas, and perspectives about yourself
  • questions about society and education can clarify or challenge ones beliefs about societal change, the role of schools, teaching, learning, stereotypes, and motivation

Structure and Methodology of Philosophy (Chris)

• Education makes certain assumptions about human nature
  • These are questions of philosophy

Branches (Iain)

• Philosophy includes branches that talk about reality of being, about knowledge, goodness and beauty, and living a good life.
  • Metaphysics
    • Philosophy that is concerned with questions about nature of reality
    • literaly "means beyond physical"
  • Epistemology
    • Philosophy that examines questions about how and what we know
    • epistemologists attempt to discover what is involved in the process of knowing
  • Axiology
    • Philosophy that deals with nature of values
      • "What is good?"
      • "What is beautiful?"
    • deals with the theory of beauty

Thinking as a Philosopher (Sasha, Jaime)

Intro-Jaime

• Two ways of thinking: Analytic and Prophetic
  • Analytic: Use this when examining questions of "What seems to be?"
  • Prophetic: Use this when examining questions of "What ought to be?"

Analytic Ways of Thinking in Philosophy-Jaime

• There are four processes used for analytic thinking:
  • Abstraction - Drawing away from a concrete level of experience to a conceptual plane of principles or ideas
    • Focusing attention on some feature within one's experience
    • Examining the precise characteristics of the feature
    • Remembering the feature and its characteristics to apply later on
  • Imagination - Alexander stated it was the second step in analytic thinking
    • Takes the process of abstraction and finishes it by filling in details, selecting them, and relating them to one another
  • Generalization - Takes abstractions altered by imagination and sets ranges and limits to them
    • Results in the development of a comprehensive set of ideas
  • Logic - Examines principles that allow us to move from one argument to the next
    • Two Main types of logic:
      • Deduction - A type of reasoning that moves from a general statement to a specific conclusion
      • Induction - A type of reasoning that moves from a specific statement to a general conclusion
      
      

Prophetic Ways of Thinking in Philosophy-Sasha

• Prophetic thinking seeks to uncover multiple realities or principles
• Counterpart to analytic thinking
• A prophetic thinker is one that goes beyond abstract ideas, lives in multiple realities, feeling and touching these realities and understanding them so that they are able to build bridges between and among the multiple worlds
• Cornel West is a prophetic thinker who wrote Prophetic Thought in Postmodern Times

Discernment- Sasha

• Discernment: the capacity to develop a vision of what should be out of a sophisticated understanding of what has been and is
• to discern a situation involves taking an enitre situation into consideration to get beyond abstract principles
• A discerning teacher sees beyond mere test scores and beyond simple classroom rules and examines the child's whole life and makes decisions based on that
• a prophetic thinkng would agree with this, yet an outside would disapprove of the teacher bending the rules

Connection- Sasha

• Prophetic thinker must relate to or connect with others
• Prophetic thinkers value and have empathy for other people
• There is a relationship between empathy and teaching

Tracking Hypocrisy-Sasha

• Although the relationship between empathy and teaching is important, it is also very important for the prophetic teacher to identify and make known the "gap between principles and practice, promise and performance, and rhetoric and reality"
• Tracking hypocrisy should be done in a self-critical rather than a self-righteous manner
• When prophetic teachers point out inconsistencies between school policies and practices it allows the teacher to remain open to others' points of view

Hope- Sasha

• The World Can Change for the Better
• according to West, hope can be difficult to take seriously, yest without it all thought is meaningless
• The prophetic teacher should realize that the world is unfinished, the future is open-ended and that what teachers do and think can definitely make a difference in the lives of students

Schools of Philosophy and Their influence on Education (Shaina)

• schools of thought are philosophical answers clustered together
  • labels made by people who are trying to show relationships between these different answers
  • philosophers often do not limit themselves to one group of thought
• Four main groups: idealism, realism, pragmatism, and existentialism
  • Eastern thought and Native North American thought are also discussed
    • not termed "schools" because they contain greater diversity and go beyond the limits of philosophy

Idealism (Emma)

• School of philosophy that holds idea/concepts as the essence of all worth knowing.
  • Ideas are the only true reality.
  • Believe in power of reasoning
  • Search for universal truths that will remain constant.
• Educational Implications of Idealism
  • Idea-centered rather than subject/child-centered. Based on the concept that idea is the foundation of all things.
  • Idealist believes learning comes from within the individual.
  • Spiritual and mental growth cannot occur until they re self-initiated.
• Idealist' educational beliefs
  • Study of great leaders as examples for us to imitate
  • Teacher is idea model/example
  • Emphasizes lecture, discussion, imitation
• Founding Idealists
  • Plato
    • Truth is central reality.
    • Truth is perfect and cannot be found in the world of matter (since the material world is imperfect and ever-changing).
    • Believed people discover knowledge, they do not create it.
  • Socrates'
    • thoughts correspond with role of education, e.g. teachers must question students in order to help them remember what they have forgotten or bring forth knowledge.
  • Immanuel Kant
    • Believed in freedom, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God.
    • Reality is the interaction of reason and external sensations. The way the mind works precedes the understanding of reality.
  • Jane Roland Martin
    • Feminist scholar who believes that being educated means engaging in conversations that stretch back in time.
    • Education cannot be pin-pointed, it cannot really be defined or confined, it is simply where one "comes to learn what it is to be a person."

Realism (Allie)

• Realism is a school of philosophy that holds that reality, knowledge, and value exist independent of the human mind.

Realists place importance on the role of the teacher in the educational process

• Teachers should present content in an organized manner, clearly state criteria.
• importance of scientific research and development
• standardized tests, curriculum in which disciplines are seen as separate areas of investigation

Say that ultimate goal of education is the advancement of human rationality

• teach students to reason critically through observation and experimentation
• natural science, social science, humanities, logic, and inductive reasoning

ARISTOTLE

believed one could aquire knowledge of forms or ideas by investigating matter

• absolute form is unchanging: tree in a forest will always be a tree regardless of a human perceiving it

took great care to write with precision

JOHN LOCKE

-believed that a person's mind is like a blank tablet at birth and that a person's sensory experiences make impressions on this tablet
-Ideas (round, square, tall) represent objects

• shapes represent the world but secondary ideas (ex. colors) have a basis in the world but do not represent it

ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD

-proposed "process" to be the central aspect of realism
-did not see primary and secondary qualities as Locke did, saw them as a unit
-believed universe is comprised of patterns that can all be solved by mathematics

Pragmatism (Briana)

• 
  

Existentialism (Makayla)

• Reality is lived existence, and final reality resides with the individual (metaphysics).
• Basically believe that we are meaningless on a small planet in an unimportant galaxy in an indifferent universe.
• Existentialists find the definition of their lives to be in their quest for meaning. The fact that life is meaningless compels them to instill life with meaning.
• Define themselves: make meaning in their world by the choices they make. Basically saying we are what we choose (axiology).
• Educational Implications of Existentialism
  • Existentialists believe that most schools de-emphasize the individual and the relationship between the student and the teacher.
  • Claim that when a teacher tries to predict a students behavior they turn individuals into objects to be measured, quantified, and processed.
  • Proper education does not start with the nature of the world and with humankind, but with the human individual or self.
  • The existentialist student would have a questioning attitude and would be involved in a continuing search for self and for the reasons for existence.
  • The existentialist teacher would help students become hat they themselves want to become, not what outside forces such as society, other teachers, or parents want them to become.
• Jean-Paul Sartre
  • Said that existence (being) comes from essence (meaning).
  • Saw no difference in being free and being human.
  • The process of answering the question "Who are we?" begins at a crucial event in the lives of young people called the existential moment- the point hen the individual realizes that they exist as individual agents.
• Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Stresses the importance of the individuality of persons.
• Maxine Greene
  • Philosophy is a deep personal and aesthetic experience.
  • Her writing blurs the difference between philosophy and literature.
  • Important because Greene contends that living is a philosophy.
  • Says that schools must be places that offer "an authentic public space where diverse human beings can appear before one another as best they know to be".

Eastern Ways of Knowing (Samantha)

-evidence the Platonic philosophy owed much of its development to Eastern thinkers who emphasized the illusionary quality of the world
-eastern ways of knowing as a group stress inner peace, tranquility, attudinal development, and mysticism
-stress the inner rather than the outer, intuitional rather than sense, and mysticism rather than scientific discoveries
-begins with the iner and then reach to the outer
-emphasize order, regularity, and patience that is proportional to and in harmony with the laws of nature
-always concerned themselves with education (achieving wisdom), maintaining family structure, establishing law, and providing for social and economic concerns
-instruction includes things one must do to achieve a good life
-education is viewed as necessary for this life and life hereafter
-offer vantage points from which to examine western thought- swagner228 Nov 1, 2009
Indian Thought
-has a long complex history and is permeated by opposites
-western philosophers need opposites to be reconciled
-eastern think the need for consistency is unimportant
-great emphasis is placed on search for wisdom, but doesn't mean rejection of worldly pleasures
-speculation is emphasized but has a practical character
-insist knowledge be used to improve social and communal life and people should live according to their ideals
-pervailing sense of universal moral justice according to which individuals are responsible for what they are and what they become- swagner228 Nov 1, 2009
Chinese Thought
-emphasis on harmony
-correct thinking should help one achieve harmony with life
-harmony of government, business and family should lead toward a higher synthesis
-Confucianism and Taosim are two major contexts for Chinese thought
-more than 2000 yrs Confucian though has influenced education, government and culture in China
-Confucius believed that people need standards for all life, so rule were developed for a wide range of activities
-Confucian thought gives education a high place but stresses building moral character more than teaching skills or imparting information
-children should obey and defer to parents and respect the wisdom adults have gained in their journey through life
-following these principles allows children to become chun-tzu, persons distinguished by faithfulness, diligence and modesty
-central concept os Taoism is that of the Tao, the Way or Path
-the Tao is the way the universe moves, the way of perfection and harmony
-it is conformity with nature
-most significant aspect of the Tao is letting things alone, not forcing personal desires onto the natural course of events
-it is noncompetitive approach to life
-Taoists believe that conflict and war represent basic failures in society, for they bring ruin to states and disrespect for life- swagner228 Nov 1, 2009
Japanese Thought
-rooted in Shinto, a way of thinking that recognizes the significance of the natural world
-Shinto accepts the phenomenal world as absolute
-this acceptance leads to a disposition to lay greater emphasis on intuitive, sensible, concrete events rather than on universal ideas
-Japanese express this focus on the natural world through many artifacts, including patterns of traditional kimonos- swagner228 Nov 1, 2009
Educational Implications of Eastern Ways of Knowing**
-places great emphasis on the teacher-student relationship
-the student is changed as a result of contact with the guru, master, or prophet
-eastern educational thought emphasizes transformation
-attitude shaping is important because the attitude a person holds towards life will determine the individual's level of goodness and wisdom
-educational aim is to put humanity in tune with nature
-great emphasis on observing nature and learning through wanderings and pilgrimages
-importance of achieving wisdom, satori, enlightenment, or nirvana is supreme
-all paths must lead to this and from this wisdom spring virtue, right living, and correct behavior- swagner228 Nov 1, 2009

Native North American Ways of Knowing (Lauren T)

• 400+ tribes in North America
• Beliefs focus on relationship between humans and nature
  • Could be considered way of life
  • Reverence of nature/responsibility towards
  • Reference to supreme being (various forms and names in different tribes)

Navajo Thought:

• Largest tribe in U.S.
• Originally nomadic
• Known for easily adapting own beliefs with those of other tribes
• Basis=value of a life in harmony with nature
  • Idea of ‘inner forms’ or ‘souls’ of objects

Lakota Thought:

• Tribe from the Great Plains
• Mystical involvement with nature (ex. Ecosystem: earth, night, sun)
• Celebrate “sacred hoop of life” and have 7 sacred rituals toward unity with Wakan-Tanka (Great Spirit)

Hopi Thought:

• Follow path of peace-part of human’s evolution
• *Road of Life’=journey through 7 universes
  • depends on the plan given by the ‘Creator’, each Hopi clan has distinct life role
• Must live in harmony with nature

Educational Implications of Native North American Ways of Knowing:

• Emphasizes the need to live with nature
  • Knowledge/happiness subordinate to respecting the universe
  • To know=understanding one’s place nature
  • To be=celebrate the great spirit through ritual/stories
• Natural relationship between all things (ex. humans and animals)

Summary (Cara)

Structure and Methodology of Philosophy

• philosophy influences teaching methodologies and the ways in which teachers and schools educate
• philosophy revolves around three major types of questions:

• the task of the teacher is to identify a preferred style, philosophy, and understand it thoroughly
• two approaches to the process of philosophy are analytics and prophetic thinking

Schools of Philosophy and Their Influence on Education

• there are four classical Western schools of philosophical thought

• the Eastern and Native North American ways of knowing are varied and diverse
• many of these ways of knowing share and underlying sensitivity to nature and an emphasis on wisdom, virtue, spirituality, and harmony within the larger universe
• these philosophies emphasize teaching respect for nature and awareness of the interrelationship among beings and the world